Yeah. Like again credit to Israel for sure but watching lot of this Brazil tram this tournament? They relied a lot on just being Brazil. Bit them against Italy and bit them against Israel. Doesn't mean if we beat Uruguay they'll be a cake walk either but you can see in this tournament which teams are there to compete and those that buy their hype
Korea and Nigeria both look utterly exhausted. Neither have been able to do much today. Nigeria doing a bit better.
they are very similar teams - very well organized defensively, very tenacious 1 on 1 defending, lacking much of any ideas on attack. the only thing i'd be worried about from a US perspective would be going too conservative on offense and not creating enough.....if you can score vs these teams, you win.
So far, a classic smash and grab. Korea have no business winning this game. They've had 4 shots total. That's been a shot every 25 minutes.
neither team did.... biggest mistake playing these teams would be sitting back and playing into their hands... very good defenses but nothing going on in attack.
Disappointing game for the US. Random thoughts; The US came out strong and controlled the pace for the first 10-12 min Uruguay eventually got off their back heels The first goal really took the wind out of our sails Several bad decisions on 1st goal, both the commit outside and Che went the wrong way. Cade Cowell is a real talent but needs to stop dribbling into traffic The own goal was unfortunate - there was some hope until then Feel badly for Pukstas - he couldn't get out of the way of Cowell's shot, headed for the net Uruguay kills time as well as any South American team Like all S American players Uruguayans learn early how to go down in a heap w little contact. Cowell and Slonina are the class of this team. Wondering when Cowell will head to Europe. Was hoping to see more of Paredes. The US players are technically very good. The ball movement in the first 10 minutes was wonderful to watch. We continue to nibble our way up the food chain.
Maybe or maybe of decades and decades of mostly getting out of the group, and going out in the R16 most of the time, and the quarterfinals a handfl of times gives us a pretty solid sense of where the US ranks. Top 8 is in reach. Top 4 doesn't seem to be. Just how it has always gone.
The USA needs Soccer to surpass the popularity of Basketball and rival the NFL in order to get the athletic talent to have any chance at Top 4.
Other than GKs and CBs you don't necessarily need players above 6 ft in order to have a great football team. I don't think competition for athletic talent is the main issue...
Oh, it's an issue. There's tons of great shorter athletes who never play soccer in this country. It's not about LeBron; it's about the kid that plays football or basketball instead and top out because of size but would have been better at a sport they never seriously considered. You can consider the cornerbacks or D1 point guards, but there's probably guys out there you don't even think of. One of my friends is a very driven, very coordinated, just barely below Olympic level medium and long distance runner. He's one of those people who is very good at every spot he plays. I have no idea if he would have been a great soccer player had he started at age 3, but he never played it. And he's like 5'6", so the sports he did play were never a real option. So he put his work ethic into running. But who knows? To be that elite player, you're going to have to start really young, and really love to play and focus on it. And there's just a lot of kids that do neither here, and as a %, it's a very small number compared to most soccer countries.
It doesn’t need to surpass basketball at all, but there’s definitely work to do to grow the game at the grassroots level in a lot of different parts of the country. It’s less about whether we have the best athletes playing soccer and more about making sure we tapping our population to its full extent.
I suspect we lose more potentially great soccer players in this country to academics and other non-sports activities than to other sports. And that is totally fine.
This YWC was a decent success if we understand the truth that this group had very few players that were projected to challenge as full MNT starters. Successes The baseline was hugely improved. No low points on the roster except at 9. The quantity and quality of the baseline midfielder has jumped up several levels The style of play was modern and, at times, gorgeous. If we can develop mid ceiling players to this level of tactics and play style then future high value prospects are in good hands. Things to work on The development of 9s is lagging. Pepi is an outlier and not part of continued success. We may have a "Germany" issue. Very few stars but a lot of high level system players. I don't think this matches well with our national character. The point above may be related. Germany tends to have a 9 issue as well.
To be fair 9s are the hardest position to develop. Countries like Spain and Italy are also not thrilled with their 9s. France had two guys very good players in their mid 30s at the 9 initially for the World Cup (until Benzema got hurt). At the World Cup Brazil's primary starter at the 9 was Richarlison, a player who scored a total of one goal in the EPL this season. Feels like the only countries really happy with their situation at the 9 at current are England, Norway, and to a lesser extent Poland (on account of Lewandowski being 34). I guess you can throw Nigeria in there too.
I should provide some background for the "Germany" statement from above. Germany and Brazil have been on the opposite poles of NT philosophies for a long while now. Germany develops system players while Brazil develops stars. Both are very successful but when Germany fails it is because of lack of high ceiling players while Brazil fails because of players that don't gel in to a coherent system. The contrast has been Holland and Uruguay which, with the limits of their population, does both. France seems to have also solved the dilemma recently.
Felt Wiley showed why he had been successful as a straight line winger for Atlanta, but is only ok as a fullback. It felt like Varas went out of his way to avoid playing a back 4 with traditional fullbacks.